The Laws of Star Formation: From the Cosmic Dawn to the Present Universe

2 July 2018 - 6 July 2018

This is a conference in honour of Prof. Robert Kennicutt. It will be held at the Institute of Astronomy and the adjoining Kavli Institute for Cosmology at the University of Cambridge (UK) from Monday July 2th to Friday July 6th, 2018.

Scientific rationale:

The coming of age of many facilities and new instrumental capabilities, including ALMA, JWST, VLT/MUSE, etc., and the continuous stream of ground-breaking results from HST, Spitzer, Herschel, and others, has ushered a new era for the investigation of star formation in galaxies. As we inch our way into the formulation of a predictive theory of star formation, we are now in a position to relate the newly formed stars to their natal gas at all scales, from giant molecular clouds up to entire galaxy populations, in present-day galaxies back to the dawn of cosmic time. Observational studies linking molecular gas mass to star formation activity are crucial to shape our understanding of the physical processes that drive the conversion of gas into stars, and to identify the dominant positive/negative feedback processes that trigger and quench star formation in a wide variety of galactic environments. Balancing these physical processes over time, galactic disks self-regulate their level of star formation and become galactic ecosystems, in analogy to many other ecosystems observed on earth. This conference will bring together experts on all aspects of star formation to assess the progress made so far, compare achievements in different areas, and lay the ground for future directions. Among the goals is to bring together different communities and to discuss the role of planned and future facilities in unraveling the link between star formation and gas in galaxies.

The major themes of this meeting are:

* The star formation law in different gas phases (LSB, HSB, atomic or molecular gas). (Non-)linearity of the star formation law.